As he stood at the top of the world, looking down upon the mountain ranges, Humboldt began to see the world differently. He saw the earth as one great living organism where everything was connected, conceiving a bold new vision of nature that still influences the way we understand the natural world.
Hedy Lamar didn't drink and she didn't like to party, so she took up inventing. It annoyed her deeply that few people saw beyond her beauty to her intelligence.
We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.
pickWill definitely go on my list of books with grumpy, lovable men. Great story about how important a sense of home can be.
What a perfect cover for a book from the 40s. Has anyone read it?
I hadn't realized how much (Emilie) du Chatelet and Voltaire's love affair was at the Enlightenment's very heart. The eighteenth century's leading man of reason had been bested by a woman intellectually superior to him...
The cover blurb mentions both Brideshead Revisited and Enduring Love. Now I have high expectations!
I was numb, in his arms, with the thought of all I had lost: the movement of his hand was just a movement, his tongue was an actual tongue. I had killed it; my best thing. The guilt, when it finally hit, was astonishing.
